Quite an Uppercut

April 27th, 2010  ~  Andre Asbury  ~  No Comments 

Today’s hand comes from a club game I played in with Sean on Sunday. We play canapé so the 1♦ opening showed hand limited to 15 hcp that is either single suited with diamonds or 2 suited with diamonds being the second best suit. It also denies holding exactly 4 in a major. The double is negative but only promises 3 in the unbid major. Personally, I would have opened the hand 2♥, which shows a single-suited hand with hearts and 8-11hcp but it fits the requirements for a 1♦ opening as well.

Dealer: E Vul: NS		North
		♠	J9874
		♥	–
		♦	AKQ
		♣	JT974
West				East
♠	QT			♠	6
♥	QT64			♥	AJ8732
♦	765			♦	JT83
♣	KQ63			♣	A5
		South
		♠	AK532
		♥	K96
		♦	942
		♣	82

Anyway, I bet I don’t have to write much for you to figure out what is interesting about this hand. I led the ♣K, partner overtook and led back a . Upon playing a third round of clubs, Sean gets to ruff with his singleton 6. This forced declarer to use the K to overruff, and now my Q stood as the setting trick. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an uppercut with such a low spot card. Good thing I didn’t lead either of partner’s suits. That is all for today.

Passive Defense and Squeezing Declarer

April 26th, 2010  ~  Andre Asbury  ~  2 Comments 

One of the best guidelines for defense is that when the auction indicates partner has virtually no high cards, make a passive lead and just wait on your tricks to come. Another good guideline to follow as opening leader is that when dummy (or declarer) has a long suit that is likely to run, make an aggressive lead. Try looking at only the auction and the west hand to start with today. I totally do not condone this bidding but it is what happened at the table and I found myself on opening lead.

Dealer: E Vul: EW		North
		♠	9
		♥	KT432
		♦	T42
		♣	KQ64
West				East
♠	AK84			♠	JT76
♥	Q96			♥	J8
♦	A85			♦	QJ76
♣	JT5			♣	973
		South
		♠	Q532
		♥	A75
		♦	K93
		♣	A82

A heart lead is definitely out, a spade lead could work out but this really doesn’t seem like the hand to try to set up spades – declarer likely has 4 to at least the Q. A club lead is unlikely to give up a trick, and a diamond lead could work out well but could be disastrous if partner doesn’t have 2 honors. By the first guideline, you should lead a club, refusing to give declarer a spade trick and just making sure you don’t give up any natural tricks. By the second guideline, you should lead a diamond, the most aggressive lead. Your Qxx of hearts looks bad for the defense as it is likely dummy’s hearts will run, or that they will all set up with only 1 loser, so finding partner with 4 or 5 diamonds to the QJ (or QT with the J in dummy) might make that a good lead.

On this hand, the diamond lead works great, after winning the K, all declarer can do is cash his 7 tricks, for when the defense gets in, it’s wide open for them to take 4 spades and 3 diamonds. However, switch the J and 8 of diamonds and it’s a very different story. The diamond lead is disastrous because it not only gives declarer a diamond trick he couldn’t get on his own, but it also doesn’t set up anything for the defense. East still cannot get on lead to lead a spade through declarer, and declarer can cruise to 9 tricks (4 hearts, 4 clubs, and a diamond).

Back to the original deal – let’s take a look at the ending after a club lead. Declarer wins the first club on the board and then attempts to duck a heart into west (but that’s not possible because east’s 8 pops up on the first round, so he plays A, K and another heart. West then continues the passive defense by leading another club, taken with the ace. Upon cashing the last round card in dummy, declarer squeezes himself, but there really isn’t anything he could do to avoid it – playing like this up to this point was necessary to prevent east from leading through his pointed honors. Here is the lie of the cards with the 13th club left to cash.

		North
		♠	9
		♥
		♦	T42
		♣	4
West				East
♠	AK8			♠	JT
♥				♥
♦	A8			♦	QJ7
♣				♣
		South
		♠	Q53
		♥
		♦	K9
		♣

The bidding makes it clear that south’s distribution is 4-3-3-3, so west should have no problem figuring out what to pitch behind declarer. Interestingly, what east pitches doesn’t matter as long as he hold QJ of diamonds. Declarer must unguard either his diamond or his spade and west pitches the opposite suit. So either west’s 8 will be good to win trick 13 when the Q falls under the AK or east’s diamond Q will take trick 13 after declarer’s now-stiff K falls under the A.

The result is making 2 for 120, but that still should be a good matchpoint score for EW because NS rate to make 3H for 140.

If There’s a Good Chance Partner Won’t Understand Your Bid, Find Another Bid

April 24th, 2010  ~  Andre Asbury  ~  2 Comments 

West				East
♠	AKxxxxxx			♠	Jxx
♥	Axx			♥	KQx
♦	–			♦	AKxxx
♣	xx			♣	Qx

A good rule of thumb to follow is to not make a bid if you think partner might misinterpret it, even if you think it is the best bid for your hand. Just do something else for the time being that won’t get you guys into trouble and then talk about what you wanted to do instead after the session.

Most established partnerships have some understanding of what this bidding sequence means, if only because someone tried it once and got lost. When I made this 4♦ bid, I knew we hadn’t talked about it but I thought surely partner wouldn’t grossly misinterpret it. I mean, I could bid 3♦ natural and forcing to show a two-suiter, so surely 4♦ would be shortness with extra spade length. As it happened, this new partner of mine was unable to decipher what I was trying to show in a reasonable amount of time so she thought I had a distributional 2 suited hand and eventually bid 6♠ off two cashing clubs.

In retrospect, I should have Texas transferred and then bid 5♦ . That could not be confused for a two-suited hand. That auction has to be a hand with really long spades and first round control of diamonds but not clubs. Then my partner, holding a worthless AK of diamonds and no club control could sign off in 5♠.

So, while we’re at it, you and your partner should come to an understanding of what other jumps to 4 are after a Jacoby transfer mean.

My simple suggestion:

4♣ /♦/♥ = splinters, based on a slamming hand with a long suit and a singleton or void in this suit.

4NT = quantitative invite to slam with a 5 card major.

If you want to bid RKC for your major suit, Texas transfer and then bid 4NT.

Kickback in Gatlinburg

April 22nd, 2010  ~  Andre Asbury  ~  1 Comment 

This was my most fun hand of the Gatlinburg tournament. I was playing with MiniMeck and white vs. red, I picked up: ♠ T, ♥ Txxx, ♦ AJTx, ♣ AJxx. It’s 2♥ -X to me. Obviously, I bid 4♠, which is by agreement RKC Blackwood for hearts. LHO, who happened to be Barbara Heller, doubles, Matt redoubles, showing 0 or 3 keycards, pass and I bid 5♥. Hey, 6♥ could make opposite this if Matt happens to have AK and a minor suit K and a minor suit singleton, which is barely possible. Anyway, LHO, put to a guess about the proper level and denomination, opted for 6♣ with her ♠Axxxx, ♥A, ♦x, ♣QT9xxx, which was off 2.

Gatlinburg was, as it usually is for me, short and sweet with lots of bridge, beer, socializing, and driving crammed into a weekend.  MiniMeck, Arjun, Ricoh, and I managed a satisfying 8th in A/X in the Sunday Swiss, which was my only notable result in 2.5 days there.

Partner Led a King – Do I Give Attitude or Count?

April 21st, 2010  ~  Andre Asbury  ~  No Comments 

I’ve been finding a lot of situations lately where there are disagreements on which kind of signal to give. I suppose I’ve been looking for things like this more because I have been making a more conscious effort to be a better defender. Playing with some new people lately has also been more conducive to carding disagreements.

People generally say attitude is their primary signal. When in doubt, giving attitude is a good rule to follow. But in some cases one person is in doubt and the other thinks it’s a clear count situation or something like that. That’s part of what is so hard about defense – being on the same page as far as what signals you give on certain situations. Bidding and declarer play are largely formulaic and lend themselves more to following a clear set of rules, and therefore are easier to be good at. Defense seems to me to require more visualization and imagination and cooperation, so defense will be what I try to write about more than anything else.

To say you’ll always give attitude to partner’s leads and always give count when the opponent leads the suit means you’ll never have a misunderstanding about what signal is given but sometimes those aren’t the signals you need. A good player/partnership will be able to recognize most of the times when the exception to the rule occur.

Dealer: N Vul: NS		North
		♠
		♥
		♦
		♣
West				East
♠	AQT62			♠
♥	5			♥
♦	J85			♦
♣	J965			♣
		South
		♠	73
		♥	T872
		♦	KQ3
		♣	8742

In the latest situation, you’re defending 4S. Partner wins your heart lead with the K and at trick 2 shifts to the K in a side suit, declarer playing the ace. Is this a count, attitude, or suit preference situation? In a small informal poll of my peers, a slight majority gave count while most of the others gave attitude. I think I was able to convince most of the people that attitude is the correct signal here, but I can understand people wanting to give count because it seems that the location of all the club honors is known already. If partner has led from the KQ of clubs, he’s getting 1 club trick eventually and there doesn’t seem to be a rush to take it. In fact, he won’t cash it regardless of what the count in clubs is because he’ll want to get you in to capture dummy’s J. So, partner doesn’t care about the count in clubs. Partner also doesn’t need a suit preference signal. He will know to lead diamonds next if you have nothing in clubs. It seems that no signal can really be of use to partner… unless he has led from Kx of clubs, in which case he needs to know whether you have the CQ so that when he wins his trump trick, he will know whether to lead a club to your Q and get a ruff or to lead diamonds, where you must have an honor or two by process of elimination.

Hello world!

April 20th, 2010  ~  Andre Asbury  ~  4 Comments 

I welcome the opportunity to write on bridgeblogging.com, where I expect to get a lot more exposure, after having my own blog for nearly a year. Please visit that site for some of my old stuff and perhaps some less serious bridge stuff from the past year and in the future.